Dorian Warren: Inequality Could Spark a Second Civil War

Jul 28, 2014

The Next American Economy project brought together 30 experts from various disciplines to envision tomorrow's economic and political challenges and develop today's solutions. Their assignment: be bold, and leave the conventional wisdom -- and their own opinions -- behind. In today's video, Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren speculates on the political fallout of growing inequality over the next 20 years.

In his introductory post for the Next American Economy speculations series, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Bo Cutter noted that nearly half the participants at our recent convening believed that "if inequality trends continue, the political backlash will be so extreme that our current system will change drastically in the next 25 years." In the video below, Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren takes that concept and runs with it, envisioning a scenario in which national cohesion deteriorates as the country becomes increasingly divided between elite enclaves and a decimated hinterland. The consequences: a 20 percent incarceration rate, all-out civil war, and the end of democracy.

In his tragicomic scenario, he says, "Because politics was so hopeless, liberal democracy was a historical artifact. Since we transitioned to a civil oligarchy under one-party rule, many colleges and universities replaced political science departments with departments of molecular gastronomy."